Meet Inori Aizawa, the "anime personification" of Internet Explorer. Manga character Inori has her own Facebook page, which appeared at the end of October, during the AFA13 conference in Singapore. A screencap of the anime is credited to Zi Rong and Team CACANi.

"When I was younger, I used to be a clumsy, slow, and awkward girl," Inori says. "However, just like the story of ugly duckling, people told me that I have really matured and changed over the years. I feel confident in my abilities now, and I'm eager to show you what I can do."

Watch Inori's adventures in the spot below, which includes homages to several different anime, not the least of which is the Sailor Moon series..

The Verge describes Microsoft's anime fetish over the past few years, which has been mostly confined to its Asian customers.

But the yen for anime transcends Japan, which Microsoft appears to have realised. Microsoft's run of productive ads probably kicked off earlier this year, with its revamped Surface ads, along with its superlative Windows Phone spots.

"The anime character was created by Microsoft Singapore for the Anime Festival Asia (AFA) 2013," Microsoft said in an emailed statement. "This is a local marketing program for anime and Japanese popular culture lovers at AFA 2013 and across Asia and does not represent an official mascot for Internet Explorer."

Naturally, the Facebook page hides a few goodies, such as this SkyDrive folder, which contains a downloadable desktop background for true Inori fans.